Cell Booster Pro Compatibility with Cat-M and NB-IoT

That question has come up before and I think the answer is "probably not". I can ask but CAT-M is low power LTE as I'm sure you are aware of for connecting hundreds of devices. The CBP is basically the same as the CB only it can handle many more simultaneous LTE connections whereas the CB is limited to 8. It's also supposed to have a way to whitelist users but that hasn't been worked out yet. The bandwidths that the CB and CBP can utilize are in my Cell Booster Tech Guide, the link is in my sig line. I don't know what Low Power LTE on AT&T's network uses so I'd have to check.

Well, the regular CB is identical to the t-mobile cellspot and has been around for a while. It definitely doesn't support Cat-M or NB-IoT. The CBP is based on the new Nokia smart node platform (https://www.nokia.com/networks/mobile-networks/smart-node-femtocells/) which does claim to support Cat-M. The confusing part is that Nokia seems to have 3 different platforms for the new smart nodes and it is unclear which specs line up with what.

According to the FCC test report (https://fcc.report/FCC-ID/V4V1SN4IBN/5369534.pdf) this smart node (cell booster pro) does support NB-IoT but it doesn't mention Cat-M, which is strange.

So my conclusion is that the hardware is capable of supporting it... but perhaps it's not enabled in software. I have one now and it doesn't seem to be working but I'm unsure if it's because my cat-m sims are not whitelisted by AT&T's network even though they are configured to roam on it.

I've asked AT&T so we'll see. It may take awhile to hear back so I'll post back here when I hear something. There's a lot in those FCC reports but it all depends on what AT&T has asked Nokia to enable or disable. The hardware is also capable of supporting 5G, and that's supposed to happen, someday, but given the issues that Nokia/AT&T are having just getting the phone number whitelist to work, I'm not holding my breath.

It could also be an IMSI issue with either the device or SIM.

@OttoPylot Thanks for your input! I'm going to keep testing. I just received it so I have a couple of weeks before the return window ends. Let me know if AT&T gets back to you!

Pay attention to your return window! It can take awhile for me to get answers like this from AT&T. Don't be surprised if the answer is "we're not sure, we'll get back to you". 

@gtorres88  AT&T is looking into it 🤷‍♂️. We'll see.

@OttoPylot Great! I figured out how to put my devices in nb-iot mode so I will test if that works this evening.

If it does, that would be useful information to add to Cell Booster Tech Guide. Lemme know. I asked AT&T about both, CAT-M and NB-IoT

Isn't the cell boosters (because they are NOT boosters) suppose to be for voice ?

Because it's connected to an internet source for data.

@formerlyknownas  Yes, but that's what needs to be clarified. It is not a node as you well know, and is for voice only, so that's why I said it probably won't work for anything other than voice even though it is based on Nokia's Smart Node platform. My assumption is that the Cell Booster is a stripped down version of that as a voice only replacement for Cisco's MicroCell because AT&T/Cisco didn't want to invest time and money into improving the MicroCell for AT&T post-3G when there was already something similar and available  that could be used (modified) instead.